Page 30 of Ravaged By Lust

I didn’t plan on seeing Chloe today. Not at all. But seeing her was a welcome surprise. I haven’t forgotten her at all these past seven years. She looks like the same girl I once fell in love with. Those green eyes, the same as her family’s. Her long black hair. Just as she was in my dreams. Seeing her again today has stirred feelings inside me that I thought were long repressed.

I’ve been waiting

every day of my life for you

Waiting for time to bring us together

Now that you’re mine, I can’t believe

That this is forever

I’ve never forgotten those lyrics she wrote about me. For me.

All those years… I’ve still thought about her like it was yesterday. Taking her virginity. Falling for someone for the first time. The hardest I’ve ever fallen.

Fuck me, the way she acted outside her brother’s house. How close I got to stealing another kiss from her after all this time. She was leaning into it, I could tell. She was pushing me away with her words, but her body was betraying her feelings.

God damnit.

She still knows exactly how to make my head, and my heart, spin like a tumble dryer.

No girl can even compete. Will ever compete.

“What are you planning to do about Miss Chloe Stoll?” Drake asks me. “I mean, you’re clearly still totally enamored with her. That much is fucking obvious.”

I sigh. If there’s anyone on this planet that can guess how I’m feeling, it’s my stupid bandmates. We’re closer than brothers in Ravaged. I can huff and puff all I like, but there’s no hiding the truth from the men I share my life with.

“She’s gorgeous. She’s beautiful…”

“Don’t let Axel hear you saying those words. He’ll beat you to a pulp.”

Ah. Axel. Another issue standing in the way. Man, the Stoll family is one prickly bunch to deal with. It makes things difficult that I love both of them. In different ways.

“Why did I ever let her go?” I ponder out loud. “Why did I lose her?”

I never speak about Chloe or about what happened to anyone, but her arriving here today has flipped the whole earth on its head. That’s why I got Drake to spin the car around and take me back to Axel’s place. I knew – hoped - I’d catch Chloe leaving at some point, and I couldn’t trust myself to drive in the state I was. Seeing her again up close like that reduced me to being a nervous in-love teenage boy all over again. Even if he is an annoying brat, I wanted Drake right beside me when I ambushed the girl.

“Yeah,” Drake adds. “I don’t know why you would let her go when she’s such a good piece of ass.”

I raise my fist towards Ravaged’s lead singer.

“You want me to fuck you up, Drake? Show her some respect. She’s Axel’s sister.”

“Should I treat her with the same respect as you treated her back in high school?”

I shake my head. “Why is everyone on my fucking ass tonight? Is it shit-on-Bishop day?”

“I mean, you did do a pretty shitty thing to her,” Drake says with a shrug.

I growl. “I know.”

“So you can see why she might be a little wary of you, huh?”

“Do you think she still likes me?” I ask my friend.

What the hell have I turned into? A lovesick puppy?

“Hey, she didn’t run away at the first sight of you, so that’s good news, isn’t it? You might have to grovel and beg to even get her attention, but at least she heard you out.”